A few weeks ago I posted on the new workout regime I’ve jumped into, Mountain Athlete. One of the many benefits of the program is its focus on building mental toughness. The idea of strengthening the will, or mind, is often somewhat nebulus. Everyone has an idea of what it means in theory, but few have been put in a position, either voluntarily or involuntarily, where a great deal of it was required.
We often simply point to those whom we know to possess it – Lance Armstrong, Aron Ralston, Elie Wiesel, or anyone that can finish this race, rather than trying to figure out what it actually entails or how one obtains it.
I wrote on the topic of mental toughness a while back, but the subject came up again on the Mountain Athlete website a few days ago. Here’s what Rob Shaul had to say on building mental toughess in the gym:
Gym-based mental toughness is one of the most transferable attributes we train. This is important, unlike CrossFit, fitness isn’t a “sport” for us. We train in the gym to perform outside.
Feedback from world class mountaineers and special operations soldiers – athletes who by definition have pretty darn high mental toughness – have both reported back that the mental toughness they learned and build in the gym transfered to their performance on the mountain and on the battlefield.
I’m a strength coach who believes that mental toughness should and can be trained in the gym. Further, initial gym-based mental toughness can’t be seen as the ultimate judge of an athlete’s character.
What I mean by this is gym-based mental toughness can be learned. Often, new athletes will suffer with mental toughness their first time in the gym. But the next time they come in and endure one of these work capacity/mental toughness sessions, they do much better. They have some idea what to expect, and their performance improves.
Further, I think mental toughness can and should be coached. Here are some guidelines we use:
1) Don’t go to complete failure. Stop and rest before digging yourself into a deep hole. I instruct my athletes to stop with 1-2 reps left and rest then instead of going to complete failure before stopping.
2) Limit your rest to 5 breaths. That’s it.
3) No rest between transitions. This is the hardest one. Move right from one exercise to the next and start it. Your mind will want to rest. Your body doesn’t need to. You’ll surprise yourself.
4) The darker things get, the shorter term your thinking needs to be. When things rally suck, just tell yourself, “one rep at a time.” – don’t think about the whole set.
Popularity: 4% [?]
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
What got me was #2. 5 breaths! Just 5!!
I’ve done 30 second rests between staggered sets of bench and curls or pullups and french presses, but I (hopefully) got more than 5 breaths in.
It’s true though. You can ram out a great workout in less than 30 minutes with extreme focus. Now if I could just get as excited about running 3 miles!
Your last point, #4, is so true for me. My last race was probably the toughest one I did and the only thing I was repeating me was, “it’ll be fine, let’s go”. Only that, not more. Thinking more long-term than that was discouraging me instead of encouraging me…
Good post, thanks!